My invention is a dispensing unit of a volatilizable substance such as a perfumery material, an insect repellent and an animal repellent or the like capable of visible determination of its extent of use comprising a sighting mechanism having associated therewith a vertically positioned rotatable support having located thereon in the same plane at least one gravity activated weight and a volatilizable substance and having a variably located centroid initially positioned proximate the geometric center point of the unit with the centroid moving downward when the unit is in use whereby as the volatilizable substance evaporates, the weight eccentrically located in the same plane as the volatilizable substance angularly rotates about the "z" axis leaving its initial position and finally coming to rest at a resting position while the volatilizable material is used up and whereby at least the final position of the weight is rendered visibly detectable by means of said sighting mechanism.
Dispensing units of volatilizable substances capable of visible determination of their extent of use are known in the prior art.
Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 2,642,310 issued on Jun. 16, 1953 entitled "Diffuser And Binder Base For Residue Of Evaporable Material" discloses and claims a dispensing unit of volatilizable material containing minor portions of non-volatilizing residue forming components, comprising a relatively flat receptacle having an enlarged bottom wall, a low peripheral side wall, and being open at the top thereof, said bottom wall having a thin sheet of fibrous material arranged along and in close proximity thereto, the surface of said sheet of fibrous material being adherent to the volatilizable material and providing means for adhering bodies of said non-volatilizable residue in fixed position with respect to said receptacle, with the sheet being characterized to function as a replacement indicator as portions thereof become exposed through evaporation of volatilizable material from the receptacle.
Articles which can be modified using weight means and sighting means which are dispensing units of volatilizable substance, but which are not disclosed to be so capable of being modified are set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,684 issued on Jun. 22, 1976 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,258,004 issued on Mar. 24, 1981. The disclosures of said U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,964,684 and 4,258,004 are incorporated herein by reference.
The prior art does not however disclose a dispensing unit of volatilizable substance capable of visible determination of its extent of use involving a variably-located weight means associated with a sighting means.
The volatilizable substance may be a totally volatilizable material suspended in a foam-like material such as polyurethane foam or it may be a volatilizable material suspended in a matrix of nonvolatilizable material such as a silica gel by itself or the silica gel-matrix may be further suspended in a rigid foam such as a polyurethane foam.
The weight as described, supra, may be freely rotatable or the weight may be attached to a vertical support and both the weight and vertical support rotate about the "z" axis as will be more specifically described, supra. As the volatilizable substance evaporates, its density decreases whereas the density of the weight remains constant. Accordingly, the moment of inertia and center of gravity vary as the volatilizable substance evaporates and the weight travels in a downward direction as a result of gravitational attraction for the weight means.
The second embodiment of my invention is a dispensing unit of volatilizable material capable of visible determination of its extent of use and having a variable centroid initially located below the geometric center point of the unit with the variable centroid moving in a substantially downward direction on use of the dispensing unit, comprising:
(1) A freely rotatable vertically disposed substantially planar solid vapor impermeable wall member the rotation of which is gravity induced, said wall member having (i) an enclosing outer circumferential boundary having an upper boundary arcuate segment and a lower boundary arcuate segment and (ii) two vertically disposed substantially planar outer surfaces located, respectively, in a first "x-y" plane and in a second "x-y" plane parallel to each other and rotatable about a "z" axis substantially perpendicular to each of said "x-y" planes, said first and second "x-y" planes each having a horizontal "x" axis and a vertical "y" axis; PA1 (2) A shaft means parallel to said "z" axis about which said wall member is capable of rotating; PA1 (3) Located in a third "x-y" plane proximate said lower boundary arcuate segment on and removably affixed to a major portion of at least one of said planar outer surfaces, a laminar matrix of a volatilizable substance included in a nonvolatilizable substance, the medium plane of said laminar matrix being substantially parallel to said first and second "x-y" plane; PA1 (4) Located in a fourth "x-y" plane proximate said upper boundary arcuate segment on and permanently affixed to a minor portion of at least one of said planar outer surfaces a substantially solid visible weight means having a centroid initially located in the proximity of said vertical "y" axis, above the location of said shaft means and at a height above ground greater than the height above ground of the centroid of said laminar matrix; PA1 (5) Associated with said wall member, a fixed sighting means comprising a window means located in a fifth "x-y" plane parallel to said first and second "x-y" planes, perpendicular to said "z" axis and facing said visible weight means, said sighting means having a line of vision through said window in a direction from said window means to at least one given location of said weight means, each line of vision being substantially parallel to said "z" axis PA1 (1) A fixed vertically disposed substantially planar solid vapor impermeable wall member, said wall member having (i) an enclosing outer circumferential boundary having a first upper boundary arcuate segment and a first lower boundary arcuate segment; (ii) two vertically disposed substantially planar outer surfaces located, respectively, in a first "x-y" plane and in a second "x-y" plane being parallel to each other, said first and second "x-y" planes each having a horizontal "x" and a vertical "y" axis, each of said "x" axis and said "y" axis being perpendicular to a "z" axis; and (iii) a nonbroken vapor impermeable side wall protruding from and contiguous with the entirety of said circumferential boundary extending in a direction substantially parallel to said "z" axis, having a first upper arcuate segment and a second lower arcuate segment; PA1 (2) A cylindrically shaped shaft means having a shaft wall parallel to said "z" axis having a first upper surface segment and a first lower surface surface segment; PA1 (3) Located in a third "x-y" plane proximate said first lower boundary arcuate segment and said second lower arcuate segment on and removably affixed to a major portion of at least one of said planar outer surfaces and a major portion of said second lower arcuate segment, a laminar matrix of a volatilizable substance included in a nonvolatilizable substance (e.g., a perfume material or an insect repellent such as 1-nonen-3-ol suspended in a matrix of silica gel), the medium plane of said laminar matrix being substantially parallel to said first and second "x-y" planes, said matrix having a second upper surface segment parallel to said "z" axis and perpendicular to each of said "x-y" planes and a second lower surface segment parallel to said "z" axis and perpendicular to each of said "x-y" planes, and initially being contiguous with said first lower segment surface; PA1 (4) Located in said third "x-y" plane initially proximate said first upper boundary arcuate segment and said second upper arcuate segment and initially having a major portion of its lower surface contiguous with said second upper surface segment of said matrix a substantially solid, visible, freely rotatable weight means having a centroid initially located in the proximity of said vertical "y" axis above the location of said shaft means and at a height above ground greater than the height above ground of the centroid of said laminar matrix; PA1 (5) Associated with said visible weight means, a fixed sighting means comprising a window means located in a fourth "x-y" plane parallel to said first and second "x-y" planes, perpendicular to said "z" axis and facing said visible weight means, said sighting means having a line of vision through said window means in a direction from said window means to at least one given location of said weight means, said line of vision being substantially parallel to said "z" axis PA1 (1) A freely rotatable vertically disposed solid impermeable first wall member, said first wall member having (i) an enclosing first outer circumferential boundary having a first upper boundary arcuate segment and a first lower boundary arcuate segment; (ii) two vertically disposed substantially planar outer surfaces enclosed by said first circumferential boundary and located, respectively, in a first "x-y" plane and in a second "x-y" plane, said first and second "x-y" planes being substantially parallel to each other, said first and second "x-y" planes each having a horizontal "x" axis and a vertical "y" axis, each of said "x" axis and said "y" axis being perpendicular to said "z" axis and (iii) an unbroken vapor impermeable first side wall protruding from and contiguous with the entirety of said first circumferential boundary of said first wall member, extending in a direction substantially parallel to said "z" axis and having a second upper arcuate segment and a second lower arcuate segment; PA1 (2) Proximate to, "x-y" planarly parallel to, "z"-coaxial with and spaced from said first wall member a fixed vertically disposed substantially solid impermeable second wall member, said second wall member having (i) an enclosing second outer circumferential boundary circumscribing the enclosing first outer circumferential boundary of said first wall member; (ii) two vertically disposed substantially planar outer surfaces enclosed by said circumferential boundary located, respectively, in a third "x-y" plane and in a fourth "x-y" plane, said first, second, third and fourth "x-y" planes being substantially parallel to one another, said third and fourth "x-y" planes each having a horizontal "x" axis and a vertical "y" axis, each of said "x" axes and said "y" axes being perpendicular to said "z" axis and (iii) a second non-broken vapor impermeable side wall protruding from and contiguous with the entirety of said second circumferential boundary extending in a direction substantially parallel to said "z" axis and circumscribing said first side wall of said first wall member; PA1 (3) Fixedly positioned revolvable bearing means located between said first side wall and said second side wall enabling said first wall member to freely rotate in its "x-y" plane about said "z" axis within the confines of the second side wall of the second wall member; PA1 (4) Located in a fifth "x-y" plane proximate said first lower boundary arcuate segment and said lower arcuate segment on and removably affixed to a major portion of at least one of said planar outer surfaces of said wall member and a major portion of said second lower arcuate segment of said first side wall of said first wall member, a laminar matrix of a volatilizable substance included in a nonvolatilizable substance (e.g., a perfumery material in a silica gel matrix), the median "x-y" plane of said laminar plane of said laminar matrix being substantially parallel to said first, second, third and fourth "x-y" planes; PA1 (5) Located in a sixth "x-y" plane proximate said upper boundary arcuate segment of said first wall member on and permanently affixed to a minor portion of at least one of said planar outer surfaces of said first wall member, substantially solid visible weight means having its centroid initially located in the proximity of said vertical "y" axis above the location of said "z" axis and at a height above ground greater than the height above ground of the centroid of the said laminar matrix; PA1 (6) Associated with said first wall member, a fixed sighting means comprising a window means located in a seventh "x-y" plane parallel to said first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth "x-y" planes and perpendicular to said "z" axis, said sighting means having a line of vision through said window means in a direction from said window means to at least one given location of said weight means, said line of vision being substantially parallel to said "z" axis
whereby as the volatilizable substance evaporates the weight means together with the wall member angularly rotates in said "x-y" plane about said "z" axis leaving its initial position (x.sub.o, y.sub.o, z.sub.o) at the first upper "y" axis location and finally coming to rest at a second lower "y" axis location (x.sub.f, y.sub.f, z.sub.o) which is visibly detectable from said window means, the angular velocity of said weight means together with said wall member being at least in part a function of the rate of elimination from said unit of said volatilizable substance.
However, the dispensing unit of volatilizable substance of my invention does not need to have its weight means fixedly attached or permanently attached to any vertical supports. Thus, as shown in FIGS. 16, 16-A, 17 and 18 the weight means can be freely rotatable (unlike the article shown in FIGS. 1, 21 and 22).
Accordingly, another embodiment of the dispensing unit of volatilizable substance capable of visible determination of its extent of use of my invention comprises:
whereby as the volatilizable substance evaporates, the weight means angularly rotates in said third "x-y" plane above said "z" axis leaving its initial position at the first upper "y" axis location (x.sub.o, y.sub.o, z.sub.o) and finally coming to rest at a second lower "y" axis location (x.sub.f, y.sub.f, z.sub.o) which is visibly detectable from said window means, the angular velocity of said weight means being at least in part a function of the rate of elimination from said unit of said volatilizable substance.
Furthermore, the dispensing unit of volatilizable substance capable of visible determination of its extent of use of my invention need not have an actual central or eccentric shaft means, but instead, may rotate using outer bearings as shown in FIGS. 34, 35 and 36 described in detail, infra.
Accordingly, yet another embodiment of my invention for the dispensing unit of volatilizable substance capable of visible determination of its extent of use comprises:
whereby as the volatilizable substance evaporates, the weight means angularly rotates in said sixth "x-y" plane about said "z" axis leaving its initial position (x.sub.o, y.sub.o, z.sub.o) at the first upper "y" axis location and finally coming to rest at a second lower "y" axis location (x.sub.f, y.sub.f, z.sub.o) which is visibly detectable from said window means, the angular velocity of said weight means being at least in part a function of the rate of elimination from said unit of said volatilizable substance.
Mathematical expressions which can be used to formulate computerized designs of the dispensing unit of volatilizable substance of my invention and which are also useful in further defining my invention are as follows: ##EQU1## wherein L.sub.1 represents the momentum of the weight means and L.sub.2 represents the momentum of the volatilizable substance which is variable in volume, weight and density. Thus, L.sub.1 is defined, thusly: ##EQU2## and L.sub.2 is defined, thusly: ##EQU3## By the same token .tau.
is the torque of the weight means defined, thusly: ##EQU4## is the torque of the volatilizable substance defined, thusly: ##EQU5## wherein m.sub.1 is the mass of the weight means; m.sub.2 represents the variable mass of the volatilizable substance; and m.sub.3 represents the mass of the support means for both the weight means and the volatilizable substance. By the same token
.rho..sub.1
is the density of the weight means and
.rho..sub.2 PA2 ".theta." PA2 ".mu."
is the variable density of the volatilizable substance.
x.sub.1 Is the horizontal distance from the centroid of the weight means to the "z" axis; y.sub.1 is the vertical distance from the centroid of the weight means to the "z" axis; x.sub.2 is the horizontal distance from the centroid of the volatilizable substance to the "z" axis; y.sub.2 is the vertical distance from the centroid of the volatilizable substance to the "z" axis; z.sub.2 is the "z" distance from the centroid of the volatilizable substance to the "x-y" plane of the volatilizable substance (that is, the median plane);
is time and
represents the angle through which the weight means and volatilizable substance rotate; lower "g" is gravitational acceleration; V.sub.2 is the variable volume of the volatilizable substance.
Furthermore, the "equation of state" may be written, thusly: ##EQU6## wherein "K" represents a constant.